Insulin signaling and dietary restriction differentially influence the decline of learning and memory with age.

1Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, United States of America.

Abstract

Of all the age-related declines, memory loss is one of the most devastating. While conditions that increase longevity have been identified, the effects of these longevity-promoting factors on learning and memory are unknown. Here we show that the C. elegans Insulin/IGF-1 receptor mutant daf-2 improves memory performance early in adulthood and maintains learning ability better with age but, surprisingly, demonstrates no extension in long-term memory with age. By contrast, eat-2 mutants, a model of Dietary Restriction (DR), exhibit impaired long-term memory in young adulthood but maintain this level of memory longer with age. We find that crh-1, the C. elegans homolog of the CREB transcription factor, is required for long-term associative memory, but not for learning or short-term memory. The expression of crh-1 declines with age and differs in the longevity mutants, and CREB expression and activity correlate with memory performance. Our results suggest that specific longevity treatments have acute and long-term effects on cognitive functions that decline with age through their regulation of rate-limiting genes required for learning and memory.

During the first week of adulthood, motility and chemotaxis ability are maintained, while 1× massed and 7× spaced learning and long-term associative memory abilities are lost by Day 7 and Day 5 of adulthood, respectively. n = 6 trials (except Mobility, n = 1 trial); ± SEM.